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Thursday, June 14, 2012

Amnesia.

They say when a woman delivers a baby the pain of childbirth is so great that over time the body or the brain actually forgets how bad the pain was. If the pain stayed resonant, they say, no woman would ever choose to have more than one child.

I was just chatting with a friend from another agency, also a creative director.

It was typical creative director talk.

We spoke of how lousy our clients are.

At that point my friend said something wise:"You need amnesia to do this job."

In other words, if you remember how difficult things are, you'll duck and cover rather than trying again.

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Thank you so writing your blog, even or maybe especially on days you don't feel ideas flowing. I am an advertising veteran of similar vintage if different discipline, and although we are complete strangers, I get to commiserate about the bs, enjoy your attention to language and carefully selected words, and appreciate the universality of family issues and characters. Please feel appreciated!

Coming from a woman who just gave birth to #3 a few weeks ago (all of mine were in excess of 9 lbs), let me tell you, a woman doesnt forget the pain, but she knows the end result is greater than any pain she could have felt all along the way. Any mother would tell you she would not only do it again, but would add to the pain x 1000 for her child again.

With our business, I think it's the same way....if the reward for the hard work is greater (in whatever way that reward is defined for that individual - pat on the back, appreciation, words, bonus, et al) than the pain/work it took to get there, people in this business will keep giving their best. However, in the event that the hard workers are penalized, morale will decline, atrophy will take place followed by complacency.

In short, God knew what he was doing, even if Eve bit the apple and got labor pains....the end result was worth it! On the flip side, only a percentage of ad people "get it" - hence, the reward isnt worth it!!!